From the previously on, it was Hill, not May who said that he could never know what happened to him. I found it interesting that they could keep him conscious while he was dead? Very weird. Also, what are the thoughts on the brief image of a galaxy or something that he saw when he was looking into lights.

Also, that brain builder thing was creepy as hell.

Crabtree's bludgeon: “no set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation, however complicated”

From the previously on, it was Hill, not May who said that he could never know what happened to him. I found it interesting that they could keep him conscious while he was dead? Very weird. Also, what are the thoughts on the brief image of a galaxy or something that he saw when he was looking into lights.

Yeah, Shepherd Doctorbook said he was brought in for the SEVENTH operation, and he had been dead for days before it all even started. That was clearly captured alien technology fixing his brain, and man I can't wait for more of that. I figure the Clairvoyant has totally seen the end of SHIELD, and Coulson went angry-renegade before that and forms his own splinter cell with the Bus. Sort of like the A-Team.

Thoughts on who the Clairvoyant is? A Tratari (Shitari? Tschtarai? Whatever)? Loki?

I think there's going to be some additional weirdness to why Coleson specifically was brought back. He's a rad agent and all, but SHIELD probably loses tons of rad agents.

Also, was super glad to see Sky finally be useful in that last episode.

I love these spoilers.

Spoiler:

Well whoever the Clairvoyant is, it's guaranteed that it's alien. No human could possibly have those abilities as far as I know. Whatever he wants, he wants to take over the world. But for some reason, I feel like the Clairvoyant has tried to take over the world before, but failed. I'm not sure why, but that is what I feel in my gut.

Director Fury probably cared a lot about Coulson. Therefore, he wanted to keep him alive. But too be honest, I'm not sure what was so bad about his death that had to be kept secret.

My favorite part with Skye was her impersonation of May. That was hilarious for me. But I'm also excited to see who her parents were. It looks like it's going to be really bad (I mean in a good way) for her in the next episode.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”---Albert Einstein---

Re: secrecy around Coulson being brought back: Alien tech! And the way it kind of didn't work, insofar as putting him in such monumental pain that he needed his memories rewritten to restore him to who he once was. But I wonder if there's also something about how he was killed by Loki's staff that makes him special.

I loved how May stonily complimented Sky's jacket. There was a lot of great characterization in this last episode.

... with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.

Yeah, I'm still not seeing why that is such a huge secret. We fixed you, but it was painful? Seriously, surgery without anesthesia happens. It sucks a lot, no doubt, but that doesn't qualify it as a shield super-secret, and as a reveal, it was kind of a let-down.

The tech is getting sketchier, too. The brain thingie was interesting, but felt like a randomly dropped tech-thing. See also, the ridiculous way the aircraft turned. And literally everything to do with the bracelet. Plus, it only brings up more and more questions about what exactly shield's status is in this world. For a secret agency, it feels less and less secret all the time.

Yeah, I'm still not seeing why that is such a huge secret. We fixed you, but it was painful? Seriously, surgery without anesthesia happens. It sucks a lot, no doubt, but that doesn't qualify it as a shield super-secret, and as a reveal, it was kind of a let-down.

The tech is getting sketchier, too. The brain thingie was interesting, but felt like a randomly dropped tech-thing. See also, the ridiculous way the aircraft turned. And literally everything to do with the bracelet. Plus, it only brings up more and more questions about what exactly shield's status is in this world. For a secret agency, it feels less and less secret all the time.

Spoiler:

What exactly was the problem with the plane? In their first appearance, SHIELD has a flying aircraft carrier, I think they have materials that could take that kind of strain

Yeah, I'm still not seeing why that is such a huge secret. We fixed you, but it was painful? Seriously, surgery without anesthesia happens. It sucks a lot, no doubt, but that doesn't qualify it as a shield super-secret, and as a reveal, it was kind of a let-down.

The tech is getting sketchier, too. The brain thingie was interesting, but felt like a randomly dropped tech-thing. See also, the ridiculous way the aircraft turned. And literally everything to do with the bracelet. Plus, it only brings up more and more questions about what exactly shield's status is in this world. For a secret agency, it feels less and less secret all the time.

Spoiler:

What exactly was the problem with the plane? In their first appearance, SHIELD has a flying aircraft carrier, I think they have materials that could take that kind of strain

Spoiler:

I had an issue with the turn as well. I don't have a problem with the technology, just the maneuver. It was pointless to bring the plane to a complete stop, rotate, then accelerate back to speed. It required people to brace themselves and anything not secured would probably go flying. She could have changed direction with a simple coordinated banking turn faster, use less fuel, and not impact the passengers or cargo.

Unless SHIELD technology is significantly worse than mid-twentieth century tech, the old trick of cancelling gravity and acceleration with each other should continue to work.

Huh? That's how you simulate zero-g but it isn't how planes stay afloat.

That turn was pretty absurd though. Modern commercial airplanes have cruising speeds of about 900 km/h and since the shield plane was in a hurry, it shouldn't have been going any slower than that. To perform a 180 degree turn in a few seconds would definitely be extremely unpleasant and likely very dangerous for the passengers. Assuming the plane took 5 seconds to turn around (it appeared to be even less than that), that would give a delta V of 1800 km/h (or 100 m/s^2 of acceleration for 5 seconds) on everything in the plane, including the passengers. So I guess about 10-g which seems to be within acceptable limits according to wikipedia. Guess everyone would have been safe if uncomfortable so long as everything was properly strapped down.

Spoiler:

I am not sure if we are supposed to assume Coulson's secret is revealed now but it doesn't seem like we got any particularly useful or shocking information. Both he and the audience already knew he had been resurrected by SHIELD and that his memories had been tampered with so the only "reveal" is that one of the operations was painful? It doesn't seem like the show was particularly interested in the technology needed to perform resurrection so that's a bust.

I liked the idea that SHIELD didn't let him "rest in peace" even though he was begging them to- a pretty interesting moral dilemma except it seems this isn't so much an evil SHIELD experiment as it is Fury breaking the rules to help out a friend. This would probably make more sense if I had any idea what Coulson DID as a SHIELD agent or even what an average SHIELD agent does but after eleven episodes of the show I am still totally unclear on how this whole thing functions. Is it supposed to be a USA government organization? Clearly not, as they have many international bases and agents. Is it supposed to be covert? Clearly not, as we have seen random people and governments defer to the name and authority of the organization in several episodes. Who's backing them? Who's giving them technology well in advance of any nation's military? What is their purpose (other than to lock away immensely important scientific discoveries in their basement)? I really feel like the cast and even the writers have only the vaguest idea what SHIELD is supposed to be or do.

I did like the episode better than most in the show so far though. The characters are still one-dimensional but at least they were likable in this one.

P.S. Didn't put plane discussion in spoiler because it wasn't relevant to the plot.

Yeah, I'm still not seeing why that is such a huge secret. We fixed you, but it was painful? Seriously, surgery without anesthesia happens. It sucks a lot, no doubt, but that doesn't qualify it as a shield super-secret, and as a reveal, it was kind of a let-down.

The tech is getting sketchier, too. The brain thingie was interesting, but felt like a randomly dropped tech-thing. See also, the ridiculous way the aircraft turned. And literally everything to do with the bracelet. Plus, it only brings up more and more questions about what exactly shield's status is in this world. For a secret agency, it feels less and less secret all the time.

Spoiler:

The way with how the aircraft turned isn't really something to complain about. SHIELD has far advanced technology than we could possibly understand. It's just safe to say, they're technology just isn't much like ours.

The bracelet was awesome. I love how Coulson did the voice command at the end. It was hilarious! Nothing to be critical about there. It was a mushy moment that had a nice laugh. No big gadget coming along to unlock it.

Sure this is a secret agency. I think what you're complaining about is the fact of what is so bad about all these secrets?

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”---Albert Einstein---

Unless SHIELD technology is significantly worse than mid-twentieth century tech, the old trick of cancelling gravity and acceleration with each other should continue to work.

Huh? That's how you simulate zero-g but it isn't how planes stay afloat.

Yeah, but the point of a banked turn rather than simply yawing round is that the changed angle of gravity compensates for the centrifugal force, keeping subjective "down" in the right direction relative to the plane.

I thought the reason that the details of Coulson's death were kept from him were made fairly clear, actually. As the doctor in the scene at the end, in the car, said - "You lost the will to live. We tried to give it back to you." I figured the re-written memories were to make sure Coulson didn't know he wanted to die. Of course, we don't know why they wanted to bring him back, but it does seem very much like S.H.I.E.L.D. to want to keep the fact that they brought him back against his will from him.

I thought the reason that the details of Coulson's death were kept from him were made fairly clear, actually. As the doctor in the scene at the end, in the car, said - "You lost the will to live. We tried to give it back to you." I figured the re-written memories were to make sure Coulson didn't know he wanted to die. Of course, we don't know why they wanted to bring him back, but it does seem very much like S.H.I.E.L.D. to want to keep the fact that they brought him back against his will from him.

Spoiler:

Thanks for clearing that up. I was a bit confused there.

I really can't understand the reason why Director Fury had to have him back so badly. It could just be personal.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”---Albert Einstein---

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say maybe there's something really special about Coulson. Something important enough to expend so many resources to bring him back. I think that's more what the secret is about, not the how he was revived, but the why and I don't think it's as simple as Director Fury just really liking him.

Well of course Coulson is special. Did you guys not watch the Avengers movie? He knows all the avengers personally, and is liked by all of them. That alone makes him probably the most important agent SHIELD has, after Nick Fury himself. Plus he delayed Loki long enough for the Avengers to save the day, and avenging him is what made them work together as a team. So it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the earth would have been destroyed without him.

It's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I have an independent mind, you are an eccentric, he is round the twist- Bernard Woolley in Yes, Prime Minister

Well of course Coulson is special. Did you guys not watch the Avengers movie? He knows all the avengers personally, and is liked by all of them. That alone makes him probably the most important agent SHIELD has, after Nick Fury himself. Plus he delayed Loki long enough for the Avengers to save the day, and avenging him is what made them work together as a team. So it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the earth would have been destroyed without him.

True

Spoiler:

He is some sort of glue in that movie.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”---Albert Einstein---

Well of course Coulson is special. Did you guys not watch the Avengers movie? He knows all the avengers personally, and is liked by all of them. That alone makes him probably the most important agent SHIELD has, after Nick Fury himself. Plus he delayed Loki long enough for the Avengers to save the day, and avenging him is what made them work together as a team. So it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the earth would have been destroyed without him.

Well, new york would have been nuked, really. Maybe not the whole world, but nukes definitely would stop the invasion, albeit at a terrible cost.

Well of course Coulson is special. Did you guys not watch the Avengers movie? He knows all the avengers personally, and is liked by all of them. That alone makes him probably the most important agent SHIELD has, after Nick Fury himself. Plus he delayed Loki long enough for the Avengers to save the day, and avenging him is what made them work together as a team. So it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the earth would have been destroyed without him.

Spoiler:

Ok, he stopped the earth from being destroyed. Bury him with full honours, give him a posthumous medal and be done with it, like you would any operative dying in a war. I don't see the need to revive him, just because he managed to be friends with all the superheroes.

The lady with the x-ray eye scanned him, and was clearly freaked out, asking "What did they DO to him?!" His blood has unusually high levels of iron. Clearly, there's still some alien tech at work inside of him. What do you think? Robot skeleton? Artificial organs? He's an alien shape-shifter, given Coulson's mind? You clearly saw from his POV dying, and going to a different galaxy... maybe he was going 'home', and he got dragged back?

Well, they aren't showing this in the UK and I've not found an online less-than-legal way to view it. But view taken from Mighty Jalapeno's spoiler:

Spoiler:

We saw that the Chitari are "run" through a central core; when Iron Man destroyed it in the film they all switched off. What if somehow the Chitari work like Cylons in the sense that they are run from a central server and the bodies are just vessels? Could Coulson have been "uploaded" when Loki killed him with the staff and they found a way to download him back into a different body?

Again, not seen the episode and won't until March unless I hunt it down myself but purely taken from what other people have written.

Is there any scientific reason why a hyperbaric chamber would revive a heartbeat and restart breathing? Keep it from getting worse, I get, but ameliorate? I see no reason for that to happen.

PolakoVoador wrote:Pizza is never a question, pizza is always the answer.

poxic wrote:When we're stuck, flailing, and afraid, that's usually when we're running into the limitations of our old ways of doing things. Something new is being born. Stick around and find out what it is.

They were somehow using it to cool her down, which would help preserve brain function(which I remember as they said hyperbaric and I went 'what?' and then they said that they were setting it to cold, and I went 'huh, must be a fancy one that also freezes people for some reason ). Also, I guess increasing the pressure of oxygen would be kind of equivalent to putting someone on oxygen? but really, her problem was lack of blood pressure so she really needs fluids.

Crabtree's bludgeon: “no set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation, however complicated”

So I just finished blitzing the series. Liked it so far, was a lot better than I was expecting from general opinion.

Spoiler:

I have a feeling that Skye's power is going to be some sort of telepathy. They've been referencing how telekinesis doesn't exist so much that if it doesn't come up it will only serve as a damper on Marvel lore - and Skye's already been tagged as being good at psychological profiling, so discovering a telepathic ability would be a logical follow-on from that arc.

Spambot5546 wrote:Well...who used it? I'd sleep next to Felicia Day's used bacon.

technomancy. She was remarkably blase about her insane hacking skills...

Spoiler:

heh, the way Hollywood generally handles it all hackers have technomancy.

Spoiler:

*tappa tappa tappa random lines of code entered into a little black window next to an FBI interface that looks like it came from the latest Star Wars game.... ACCESS GRANTED*

I was ranting to someone about 'hacker lingo' used in movies, and even as recently as LAST YEAR it still makes no sense to anyone who actually knows anything about computers, which, the last time I checked was... everyone?

SirBryghtside wrote:So I just finished blitzing the series. Liked it so far, was a lot better than I was expecting from general opinion.

Spoiler:

I have a feeling that Skye's power is going to be some sort of telepathy. They've been referencing how telekinesis doesn't exist so much that if it doesn't come up it will only serve as a damper on Marvel lore - and Skye's already been tagged as being good at psychological profiling, so discovering a telepathic ability would be a logical follow-on from that arc.

Spoiler:

I think this is quite likely, though I admit that I don't understand why, exactly, she's considered good at this. Her selection of a villain as the good guy she needed to protect from the baddies in Shield, perhaps? Or her involvement with her crazed boyfriend or...look, I just don't see her as being great at understanding people. They keep telling us how important and great Skye is, but they haven't sold it well.